I love this from E. J. Dionne today:

If you held a contest to pick the worst thing a politician could be called at this moment, my nominee would be Wall Street Liberal.
That label has everything. I personally despise the way the noble liberal idea has been devalued, but face it: Conservatives have had great success in discrediting liberalism, to the point that most liberals dare not call themselves by their own name.

If you pay attention, this is an almost universal sentiment among liberal writers like Dionne. Liberals didn’t do anything to discredit liberalism, conservatives did! And just to be clear, Dionne doesn’t mean conservatives discredited liberalism by pointing out its very real flaws and mistakes. No, no. Conservatives have made liberalism into a dirty word, unfairly, by deploying evil hitmen like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove.

It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that liberals did the damage themselves, because liberalism is never wrong.